Home Sweet Home
by Fidelacchius
Summary: Dresden returns to Chicago after spending months on the front line of the war with the vampires and finds many things have changed, including Murphy.
1. Home Sweet Home

Title: Home Sweet Home

Author: Fidelacchius

Book or TV: Book

Rating: PG-13

Words: 2484

Spoiler: Through _White Night_

Disclaimer: Jim Butcher owns The Dresden Files and I am only a humble imitator.

Summary: Dresden returns to Chicago after spending months on the front line of the war with the vampires and finds many things have changed, including Murphy.

Author's Note: This isn't the fic I mentioned in _It's Not A Date_, but the plot bunnies started to nibble at my heels. Oh the horror!

* * *

There are parts Hell more sanitary than a toilet of an intercity bus.

The motor coach slowed to a halt on the final bus stop of my trip. There was a high-pitched sound of breaks and a squeak as the only door opened. A crowd of people, each irritable from the long trip, managed a single file without running over each other, but I growled in annoyance as someone prodded me forward.

My limbs burned and my back ached as I limped my way off the bus. My wizard's staff serving as a makeshift, if somewhat out of the ordinary, walking stick.

The tiny fan pointed toward the driver released the smell of burned plastic and wiring and the bus driver gave me a look as if it were my fault, which it was.

"Sorry," I mumbled as I stepped down off the bus into open Chicago air.

It was a clear sunny day and the sky was blue with only a few fluffy clouds floating above. The smell of the city for all its good and bad qualities smelled like flowers compared to some of the foul things I had smelled in the bad parts of the Nevernever. That was partly the reason why I took a cross-country trip on the bus instead of the White Council's offer of a short path back through the spirit world.

I had seen more of the Nevernever lately than I ever wanted to.

"Home Sweet Home," I said as I hobbled away from the bus.

Some people gave me a few odd looks, but most of them ignored me. The way you might ignore a homeless person on the sidewalk. Keeping your eyes forward and only looked at them in the corner of your eyes. I decided I must have looked really bad for that sort of treatment and wondered if I should have checked my reflection in the bus's side view mirrors, but I already knew what I would see.

I had a beard with about three months worth of growth and it wasn't even well groomed beard. Instead, it went in all directions like a bush. My hair wasn't much better, only oily from running my sweaty palms through it. A jungle green duffel bag was slung over a shoulder and I wore a borrowed olive green jacket.

I looked like a war weary ex-soldier coming home.

And I guess I was after spending three months on the front lines in the war against the Red Court of vampires. A war normal people didn't know about.

But I only had one thing in mind. Go home, clean up, and surround myself with my family, friends, and pets. Well I guess that's really three things.

I gingerly made my way down the steps to my apartment. The cab ride was heavenly compared to that sardine can of a bus, but my leg still ached.

After reaching the steel security door, I stretched out my wizard sense to feel for the wards that had placed over it, but it felt like I was grabbing at thin air.

The wards were gone.

Barring someone hadn't removed them or destroyed them, the wards wouldn't have just faded away. They should still be here, but they weren't. I felt a sliver of fear. Fear for Molly, fear for Murphy, and even fear for Bob. If something went down in Chicago and I wasn't here to stop it—

No, I couldn't think that. I had refused to think that for three months.

I checked the door for the usual signs of damage: marks from demon claws, dents from zombie fists, or just plain old damage from a badass warlock. Yet, there was nothing. In fact, the door looked almost brand new.

My key slid into the keyhole easy enough, but I felt resistance when I turned and the door remained locked. I examined the key, as if it had somehow betrayed me, but it looked the same as it always had.

I slid the key back into the lock, as if I would get a different result.

But this time the door opened.

Hey, maybe trying something over and over wasn't insane after all.

"Who the hell are you?"

A short balding man who resembled a beach ball with legs opened the door further and looked at me up and down with an angry expression.

"I the hell am Harry," I answered. "Now its your turn, who the hell are you?"

"I don't have to answer that. Whatever you're selling, I ain't buying."

He tried to shut the door on me, but I caught with a hand and muscled my way further inside. "This is my apartment," I growled.

"The hell it is!" he yelled has he struggled to keep me out, but I pushed harder and slipped into my apartment.

Yet, it wasn't what I remembered.

It was brighter for one thing and I looked up to notice that the light bulbs that I never used were on. The candles, the tapestries, and even the second hand couches were gone. In their place was furniture newer than I could ever afford and electronics that looked they would explode if I looked at them cross-eyed.

"What the hell did you do to my apartment?"

"Hey, you can't come in here!"

I pushed him aside and moved some carpeting off the hinged door that went down to the subbasement where I kept my lab, but the door was gone and in its place was a clean square of cement. "What happened to the subbasement?"

"That hole in the ground?" he mocked. "The landlord filled it in with concrete. Now get the hell out of here you freak before I call the cops!"

My whole world felt askew.

"I'll do it for you," I told him as I picked up a fancy phone and called Murphy's number. The phone rang a few times before it her voice mail picked it up.

"This is Sergeant Karrin Murphy, Special Investigations, I'm not..."

I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of her voice. It was typical work tone: cool, brisk, and business-like, but I still missed it.

The phone beeped, but I was speechless and decided to hang up.

My home invader left, no doubt to call the police, and I paced around the apartment a little, finally noticing the tingling sensation of a very weak threshold. The man was a bachelor like me, but he had lived here long enough for the metaphysical rules of the universe to decide that I was the uninvited guest.

It didn't feel like home anymore.

After several minutes of running the possibilities through my head, I dialed again and winced as it released a crackle as the fancy modern phone began to die on me. "This is Sergeant Karrin Murphy, Special Investigations, I'm not..."

After beep, I left a message I quickly prepared in my head. "Hi Murphy. It's Harry—," I paused and chuckled "Well obviously, ah, well I just got back home and there's someone else living here. Do you know anything about that?"

The phone let out a painful squeal in my ear and I dropped it. I looked around some more for several minutes, hoping to find some small part of my life still around, something I could take with me, but I found nothing.

I reluctantly picked up my staff and duffel bag again and proceeded to walk out. If the beach ball man returned with cops, it couldn't do me any good to stay. The way I looked, they would probably think I was a ranting and raving street corner madman with an expired end of the world sign, not an occasional police consultant who had returned from outside the country to find his home gone.

If I stayed, I could end up in jail.

So I left and feeling depressed, I only knew of one other place to go.

At least McAnally's hadn't changed.

I halfway expected my old, favorite den to have transformed with gaudy lights and blaring music of a teenager rave or gay bar with a leather dress code.

Fortunately for me, it was the same old McAnally's with the same old Mac behind the bar. A few heads lifted up as I stepped inside, but they didn't seem to recognize me due to my disheveled appearance or they just didn't care.

"Mac," I greeted as I took a seat at one of the stools. I carefully set my duffel bag down on the floor and rested my staff up against the bar.

In the past, he never said much, but he was never speechless. Yet, I had the feeling he was now as he looked at me with his squinty eyes wide open.

"What?"

"Dresden. Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"W-What!"

I stared at him with eyes just as wide, but the rational part of me realized that it explained why the beach ball man was living in my apartment.

"Mac, I am one hundred percent alive and the status of mortality has never changed," I told him carefully. "Although, I admit, there were a few times that came close to changing. Luckily for me, I survived." Others hadn't, I thought grimly.

"Ungh," he said. His gaze moved to my beard.

"I've been on the front line for three months."

He sniffed and grunted again.

"I've been stuck on a cross-country bus with hot, stinky people."

He nodded and seemed satisfied with my answers.

"I'll have an ale, steak, and – hell, I'll live dangerously – some fries too."

He opened a bottle of his ale, poured it warm into a glass mug, and then turned toward the stove as he started to work on the food. The smell of wood smoke and charred beef drifted up and made my stomach rumble in anticipation.

I kept myself busy with a used newspaper and scanned the pages. "Vampire...troll...fairy," I started naming off the causes of each of the latest crimes, even though no one in their right mind would have named them in the articles. "Special Investigations must be keeping pretty busy. I couldn't get a hold of Murphy earlier on phone. Although, if I'm dead..." An icy shiver of fear hit my gut.

"Hey Mac," I said carefully. "Does _everyone_ think I'm dead?"

He nodded.

"Was there a funeral?"

He nodded again.

Hell's holy stars and freaking stone shit bells.

I put down the paper and stared at the ale. I was feeling too much all at once, almost too much to hold down. Anger. Confusion. Fear. Pain.

They had a funeral for me. I imagined everyone I was close to being there, dressed in black, mourning, and crying. It was small group: Michael, Charity, Molly, Billy and the werewolves, Thomas, Ebenezar, and even Carlos.

Imagining Murphy mourning for me hurt the most because I thought, perhaps, she would take it the hardest. Michael had his family, Molly had her youth ahead of her, and Billy and Georgia had each other, but Murphy was different.

Our working relationship had more trust built into than most marriages and our friendship had almost as much intimacy as well. Heck, our friendship had lasted longer than both of her marriages had and Murphy never once abandoned me.

"Damn!" I slammed a fist down on the bar. The hard age old wood didn't give a bit and I felt pain in my hand, a calming pain that replaced the quick anger. "I bet the Merlin announced it. He sent me off to the front lines to begin with. I bet he was just itching to get me killed."

I was silent for a while, but felt the need to talk.

"Last month, maybe, that was it. Morgan and me were cut off and had to travel through a nasty part of the Nevernever. Damn, if you told me ten years ago that I'd be glad to see Morgan's ugly mug, I would have punched you."

Mac chuckled as he dropped a plate with a juicy steak and fresh fries right in front of me. I hungrily tore into the steak with a knife and fork.

"Heavenly," I said with my mouth half full. Maybe it was the fact that I lived off fast food for the last few days and field rations for the last few months, but Mac's steak was delicious. The good food lifted up my soured mood.

Mac moved away as a couple of local practitioners went up to the bar to pay their bill as another group came in. I really didn't keep track of the figures moving across the corner of my eyes. My mind was still filled with images of my funeral.

I even knew what my gravestone said: HE DIED DOING THE RIGHT THING.

The doors opened again and short and stocky silhouette appeared in the corner of my eye, eclipsing a midday ray of sunlight, but I paid it no attention. I finished a half eaten French fry and washed it down the ale.

Mac's looked at me and nodded toward the door. "Dresden."

I turned around on the stool and my eyes focused on the figure bathed in golden sunlight. The person was five foot nothing and had a gymnast's build with feminine curves. The sunshine made her blonde hair glow like a golden coronet.

"Murphy?" I said as I stood up.

She stepped out of the sunlight and into the darkness of the pub, where I got a better look at her. She wore work clothes, a pantsuit with her shoulder rig underneath, and her hair was little wind blown. Her large, baby blue eyes locked onto me, shiny from the beginnings of tears, and she was pale as if she had seen a ghost. I guess I was that ghost. After all, dead men don't leave voice messages.

"Harry?" she asked me, her voice shaking a little.

"Hiya, Murphy. It's really me."

She ran toward me and I expected her to go for a hug, but she jumped and wrapped her arms around my neck in a vice-like grip and her legs around my waist. The movement was so sudden, I had to grab her to keep my balance, and I touched parts of her that the Murphy from ten years ago would have beaten me to death for touching, but the Murphy of today didn't seem to care as I held her.

She didn't say anything for a long time, but the pub was silent and I could hear the ragged sound of her breathing and the sound of her sniffing. I caressed her back with a free hand. "Hey, how you doing Murph? Miss me?"

Her head nodded and I felt the softness of her cheek against mine.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"You smell like a horse."

Now I finally felt at home.


	2. No Place Like Home

Title: No Place Like Home

Author: Fidelacchius

Book or TV: Book

Rating: PG-13

Words: 2672

Spoiler: Through _White Night_

Disclaimer: Jim Butcher owns The Dresden Files and I am only a humble imitator.

Summary: Sequel to _Home Sweet Home_. After returning from the war with the vampires, Dresden discovers he had been pronounced dead! With his possessions missing and his home gone, he discovers home is wherever Murphy is.

Author's Note: Enjoy the fluff, because my next story will be a little bit darker.

* * *

I was dead. 

Oh, not in the physical or even the metaphysical sense, blood still flowed through my veins, neurons were still firing in my brain, and my soul ached at the thought that my closest friends had actually mourned for me.

I was only _declared_ dead.

It made a big difference because dead men don't leave voice mail, storm into their former apartment, or go to the local pub for a nice juicy steak and mug of ale.

Well, I suppose the undead could, but I wasn't that either.

Murphy released her death grip around my neck and I gently lowered her back to the ground. She wiped her eyes with her jacket sleeves and sniffed loudly before taking a step away from me and looking at me up and down.

"You smell like a horse," she told me again in a soft voice that trembled with emotion. "And your beard looks like you super glued road kill to your face."

I smiled, "Well that just proves I'm alive. The dead have an entirely different horrible smell and the undead have far better fashion sense."

She smiled and chuckle softly. Her eyes moved away from me and noticed my half-eaten plate of food on the bar. "You're steak is getting cold."

"Oh, that's okay," I said as I glanced at it. Mac's wonderful meal was already forgotten. The hunger I felt know wasn't one satisfied by food.

"No, go ahead," she told me as she took the stool next to mine.

"Do you want something?" I asked as I followed her. "Food? Ale?"

"N-No," she said, but I saw her eyes linger on my half-full glass mug of ale.

"Then while I eat, why don't you fill me in."

She nodded and watched me. Her baby blue eyes seemed very large in that moment, heavy, weary, and more vulnerable than I had seen her before, except perhaps after the death of her first husband. It was a sobering thought.

On some level, I could shrug off the news that I was dead pretty well, because I knew for a fact that I wasn't and never have been. Except for the inconvenience of my things being relocated and my apartment rented out to another person, the selfish side of me wasn't really harmed by the misinformation.

It was a different story for Murphy. She had lived that entire time thinking, _knowing_, that I was dead. Whatever space I filled within her heart, that piece of me had suddenly gone missing with no goodbyes, leaving a horrible hollow feeling that she had to live with day in and day out. Emotional pain that left a terrible wound.

Poor Murph.

She told me what happened a month ago. It was clearly painful for her, but she seemed to take some measure of comfort in watching eat and breathe. As if to reassure herself that I was alive and that the past month was merely a nightmare.

The story was pretty much as I expected.

The White Council announced I was dead even though they had no body. Instead, they told everyone to rely on their wizardly wisdom that told them no one could have survived. With no other possibilities, therefore I was dead. They had a funeral, every one cried, and all of my belongings were divided up.

Near the end, I was angrily stabbing the last of my steak with my fork.

"Wait. What about Molly? The Doom of Damocles—"

"Safe," Murphy said as she put a hand on my arm in a reassuring gesture. "Ebenezar took responsibility over her."

"She's on the farm?"

"Not yet. Not until the war front dies down a little."

"I bet she's loving the thought of moving to a farm in Missouri."

We both shared a weak smile at that thought. "Pretty much. For now she has homework and has to read the books he sends her through the mail."

"A wizard correspondence course?"

"Yeah, lets hope it goes better than your Latin."  
We both shared a smile again, but this time it wasn't as weak.

Murphy reached up and ran her fingertips through my beard.

"Your beard really does look horrible Harry."

"No barbers," I explained. "Its hard to self-groom without a mirror."

"What about magic?"

"Given how magic brooms worked for Mickey Mouse, I didn't want to take a chance with magic razors," I joked and received a light kick for my effort.

I pulled out some cash, laid it on the bar for Mac, and picked up my staff and duffle bag. "I guess I should rescue my apprentice from a dreary life on a farm."

"Not like that," she told me as she stood up too. "You'll scare Michael's kids."

Behind the bar, Mac chuckled.

"So what do you suggest?" I asked her. "If you remember, at the moment I don't have a place to cleanup in, much less to sleep in."

"Oh, well, I think I know of a place."

I fell asleep in Murphy's car almost as soon as I sat down on the passenger seat. I hadn't realized how exhausted I was or how tightly wound up I had been on the long bus trip home. My war weary mind had expected a Red to jump out any minute or the person sitting next to me to be a ghoul in disguise. Not to mention the place stank from cramming in dozens of hot and sweaty human beings.

In contrast, Murphy's car was clean, cool, and safe.

My forehead rested against the glass and my mind started to wander.

Images flash through my head of the last three months. The things that I had stopped, the things that I had done, and the things that I had Seen (those unforgettable views with my Sight). I still had nightmares of a forgotten god with a single malevolent giant eye and a thousand tongues wagging impishly at me.

"Harry, wake up."

I blinked my eyes and straightened my aching neck. Murphy had a hand on my chest, gently shaking me until I awoke. "Already?" I mumbled.

"We're here."

It took a few seconds for my eyes to readjust and for me to get my bearings, but I recognized the dinky little house that was more than a hundred years old.

"Your place?" I asked with surprise.

"Yeah," she said briskly. "You can take the guest bedroom. I mean, it's only temporary until you find another place, but for now..."

"Are you sure? You, me, a man and a woman, what will the neighbors think?"

Her cheeks turned pink. "Harry, we're both mature adults."

"I'll agree on the adult part."

"We aren't hormonal teenagers."

"I'll agree on the teenager part."

"And we decided a year ago that it wouldn't work between us."

"Depends on your definition of _we_."

"My point is," she said after giving me a stern look. "We can sleep under the same roof, but in separate beds, for a few nights without making this difficult."

"Are you sure about this? I mean, I'm sure Michael has a spare bedroom or I can always stay at Thomas's apartment. It's not like he doesn't owe me for giving him a home for a while."

Murphy looked at her house thoughtfully for a second, but shook her head no. "We can do this. We're friends and I _want_ to do this."

I could tell it wasn't up to debate, so I got out of the car and grabbed my staff and duffel bag out of the back seat. I looked around as I did.

"I've been meaning to ask. What happened to Mister, Mouse, and Bob?"

"Michael took Mouse, since he's good with the kids."

"And since you've got dog issues."

"Big dog issues."

"Right."

"I took Mister," she said as she walked up to the house. "But he just doesn't stay around a lot. I think he has a couple sweethearts in the neighborhood."

"The cat gets laid more often than me."

She chucked at that as she unlocked the door and walked inside.

"Come in Harry."

I was surprised. She had never given me permission before on the previous times I've visited, always deciding to error on the side of caution in case I turned out to be some Nevernever creature that only looked like me. I didn't mind. If leaving my power outside of the threshold was what it took to make her feel safe, then I would do it. She had already suffered because of a thing that looked like me.

I stepped through the door and felt the solid threshold part like a curtain.

Murphy's house was just as cute as I remembered it. If I didn't know better, I would have never expected that Chicago's toughest little detective lived here. Well perhaps the pair of swords sitting on the fireplace mantle would have clued me in.

"What about Bob?"

"Michael has him too, under lock and key. Ebenezar advised him to hold onto Bob and most of your magic stuff until Molly was ready."

"Good, although I can't imagine Bob staying quiet."

"I think Michael bribes him with romance novels."

The mental picture of a wholesome Knight of the Cross bribing a spirit of air and intellect with steamy romance novels made me laugh.

"You need a shower first," she told me. "I don't know how much longer I can stand smelling you and I don't want the smell lingering in my house."

"Yes, Ma'am, but small problem," I said as I gestured to my duffel bag. "My spare clothes aren't in any better shape."

"Fine," she sighed. "I'll leave some clothes on the bed in the spare bedroom."

"I don't think you're my size."

She snorted. "They're _men's_ clothes."

"Oh." I glanced away. The thought of Murphy dating still made me uncomfortable. Even more worse was how and why men were leaving their clothes at her house. I had a jealous little mental image of Murphy doing the _pant removal_.

An irrational caveman part of my brain thought those should be my pants.

"Nothing from Kincaid. I'd rather go naked in public."

"_Please_." She snorted. "Like I would really invite Kincaid to my house."

"Right, you enjoy the crazy sex, but you aren't stupid."

"Go take a shower, Harry. I recommend a cold one."

The shower left me feeling a lot a cleaner than I had been in three months, but my hair smelled of strawberries and sunlight due to Murphy's shampoo.

I added getting some manly toiletries to my mental list of things to do.

Before stepping out, I peaked out of the bathroom, but Murphy was nowhere in sight and I walked over to the guest bedroom wearing only a towel. I realize it was stupid, but I felt strange being naked in Murphy's house. It felt forbidden.

The bed was neatly made and on top of it were the clothes she had set out. They were also neatly folded, but smelled faintly of woodsmoke and charcoal.

They were my clothes.

Murphy had kept my clothes.

A broad smile worked up my face and I immediately started to think of ways to tease her unmercifully.

Murphy had kept _my_ clothes.

But my smile faulted as I began to realize the sad implication. I was dead and Murphy had been hurting. She was holding on to the only thing she had left.

Perhaps it was only my imagination, but I thought I could see discolored spots on the flannel shirt. It was probably nothing, probably not her dried tears.

After putting on my clothes, I went to find Murphy.

I found her in the kitchen setting a basin filled with water on the kitchen table and laying out an old hair clipper, the kind that looked like scissors. The last time they were probably used was back in the old days when it was more common for mothers to trim their children's hair.

"Wow."

"I-I figure you would destroy anything electric at a barber shop and I really don't know how you normally get your hair cut, so I thought I try it myself."

The truth was there were places that found their own little niche by serving the magic using community, much like Mac did with his pub, but the idea of Murphy cutting my hair was interesting and I didn't want to pass it up.

She had me sit down at one of the kitchen chairs and she wrapped a towel around my neck, neatly tucking it below the beard. Her delicate little lady hands took one the clipper in one hand and a lock of my shaggy hair in the other. The clipper went snicker-snack and clumps of wet hair fell down my shoulders.

We didn't talk. Murphy bit her lower lip in concentration while I just sat there, enjoying the feeling of very warm, very gentle fingers touching me.

Murphy moved around me, I felt her body, an alluring mixture of whipcord and softness, press against my arm and shoulders as she continued her work.

When she was finished, I felt disappointed that the intimate moment ended.

"So," I said, a little uncomfortable with how much the closeness aroused me. "What about the beard. I checked the bathroom and only found your lady razors."

"I had an idea about that too," she said as she walked away. "Wait here."

When she came back, she had a small object in her hand made up of a handle made from carved wood and a blade hinged on the end through its tang.

"A straight razor?"

"It belonged to my Dad," she told me quietly as she held it carefully. "I've kept it all this time. It's still in good shape and it's still sharp."

"Do you know how to use it?"

"Of course." Murphy skillfully unfolded the blade out from underneath the handle with just a flip of her wrist and placed two fingers on each side of the handle to control the blade, but it looked more like a weapon in her hands.

"I mean to shave with, not to give me a Glasgow smile."

"Relax, Harry."

Murphy applied some shaving cream and went to work with the razor. She started with sides of my face and could feel the sharp blade scrap across my skin, but at least I could feel her soft fingers on my face once more. After each swipe, she washed the blade off in the basin filled with water, then made another swipe.

She moved her face close to mine, but kept her eyes focused on her task. It was hard to stare at her large baby blue eyes and risk a soulgaze, so instead I settled for focusing on her cute nose and her lips.

When she started with the hairs under my jaw line, I got a little nervous. Murphy kept her fingers on my chin to keep my head steady while the blade went up along my throat. To shave, the razor is kept almost flat against the skin, so there wasn't much risk of a deep incision across my arteries and veins, but there is an instinctual fear of anything sharp that close to a vital point.

But I trusted Murphy.

I trusted her not to purposely cut my throat. I even trusted her not to accidentally give me anything but the most minor of cuts, so I relaxed and the fear went away as I went back to enjoy this rare intimate moment.

Trust and intimacy.

Hell's bells.

Thomas was right.

"About what?"

"Oops. Did I say that aloud?"

"Yeah," she said as she straightened up and wiped her fingers dry with a hand towel. Then she repeated, "What was Thomas right about?"

I sighed, uncertain what trouble this would give me. "Thomas once told me next to sex, that washing and styling hair was as close to intimacy as you can get."

Murphy's cheeks blushed pink before she threw the towel at my face.


End file.
